Photo by Sunny Chen
AUSD eliminates T.A. course for 2016-17 year
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The Alhambra Unified School District (AUSD) will be eliminating Teacher Aides (T.A.) courses in the 2016-17 school year due to a new California law that prohibits school districts from enrolling their students into courses without educational content.
The bill, AB-1012, was signed into law on Oct. 2015, and according to its entry in the American Civil Liberties Union website, was proposed to counteract the large amount of “fake classes” that some districts with large numbers of low-income minority students were offering. Many students were denied academic coursework and placed in instruction-free courses or courses they had already taken. To tackle this issue, the bill aims to provide support for California school districts to allow students to complete required academic coursework necessary to meet graduation requirements and college admission.
According to the AUSD Assistant Superintendent of Educational-Services, Dr. Gary Gonzales, only the T.A. courses–and by extension, the office aides–will be affected. T.A. tutors will remain in place for the 2016-17 school year. “T.A.’s were extremely limited on what types of information they could handle,” Gonzales said. “Students cannot handle any confidential materials such as homework, class assignments, student data, gradebooks, attendance rosters or other student records.”
Gonzales added that student aides were “never meant to take on the workload of classified or certificated personnel” and that they “were only meant to be of assistance.”
However, many teachers believe that with the implementation of the new policy, the 2016-17 school year would be difficult for the faculty.
“I think that my T.A. saves me about four to five hours a week of administrative work, so that’s very difficult to come up with the extra hours in my schedule to do the work they were doing for me,” biology teacher Robert Johnson said.
English teacher Scott Myers shares the same sentiment, adding that by eliminating T.A. courses, the office staff would have to take extra steps to deliver information to the student body and faculty.
“The only way I foresee the counselors being able to summon students is if they have call us on the phone,” Myers said. “That is going to be a huge problem for interrupting classes. If that happens, say, twice a period when you are in mid-sentence, or when you are in mid-thought, and when you come back, you are like, ‘Where was I?’”
There are exceptions to the California bill; in order for a school to assign a student to any course without educational content, the following conditions have to be satisfied: the student’s guardian “has consented in writing to the assignment,” a school official “has determined that the pupil will benefit from being assigned to the course,” and the principal or assistant principal has stated in a written document that “no pupils are assigned to those classes” unless the school has met the previous conditions. But as of now, AUSD will not be allowing any students to participate in a teaching aide course, even with parental consent.
Principal Debbie Stone stated that San Gabriel would “have to comply with the law.”
“Students do need to receive educational content, and [San Gabriel] does not have a curriculum in T.A. right now,” Stone said.
Stone acknowledged the possibility of AUSD’s current policy toward the new bill changing in the future, but stated that “it [would] take time.”
“[Changing the policy] would have to be something organized across all three high schools so it takes time,” Stone said. “We need time to develop [educational] content and curriculum as a district because we do not currently have our students in any classroom settings and in T.A. courses. [In] our current processes, students sign up for T.A. and show up in the classroom.”
While later decisions may change the district’s planned policy, as of now, teacher aide courses will be cut from all three AUSD high schools for the 2016-17 year.
To read student reaction to the elimination of TA courses, click on Teacher aides learn real world skills.
Article by Chelsea Huynh and Erin Truong
